We are harkening back to the New York Time’s 2010 AD Mark Oppenheimer report, Atheists Debate How Pushy to Be.
It is stated that they “came to hear panels that included several best-selling atheist pamphleteers, like Richard Dawkins…and Sam Harris, who…is a rock star in the atheist world (he traveled with bodyguards because he receives death threats from both Christians and Muslims).”
That is no less than shameful; that any “Christian” would do such a thing. Also, I cannot think of any “anti-atheism” blogger he knows that has not received death threats from atheists—where are our bodyguards? Of course, we have to become wealthy celebrities like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens and only then will some guy jump in front of a bullet for a paycheck.
The conference came on the heels of a change in leadership at the council and a rumored rift there, which some described as a standoff between atheists, who focus on God’s nonexistence, and humanists, who are also nonbelievers but seek an alternative ethical system, one that does not depend on any deity.
Some of the weekend’s speakers alluded to the turmoil at the council, where several longtime employees have resigned or been laid off.
The in-group out-group squabbles did not end there:
A central question was, “How publicly scornful of religion should we be?” Here even the humanists got less humane, as each side stereotyped the other. Those trying to find common ground with religious people were called “accommodationists,” while the more outspoken atheists were called “confrontationalists” and accused of alienating potential allies, like moderate Christians.
Perhaps at one extreme is Richard Dawkins who simply refers to anyone with whom he disagrees in Hitlerian terms.
The article notes that on the side of “accommodationists” was Chris Mooney who asked “why would you go directly at these deeply held beliefs?” when it came to what he referred to as Christians “rejecting science because of a perceived conflict with moral values…They resist evolution because they think everyone will lose morals.” Confused as this may be it was a plea.
On the side of “confrontationalists” were PZ Myers who stated, “The word for people who are neutral about truth is ‘liars,’” in reference to the infallible truth of evolution defined as “God does not exist.” Keep in mind that PZ Myers is a positive affirmation of God’s non-existence without evidence atheist and that he believes that “science” and atheism are inseparable.
A “confrontationalists” comrade of PZ Myers was Victor Stenger who stated, “It’s time for secularists to stop sucking up to Christians.”
This lead to “Mr. Mooney and Mr. Myers quarreled about a figure frequently cited as living proof of accommodation between science and religion.”
It came out that PZ Myers referred to the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, as “a clown.” But why considering that while Collins is “an evangelical Christian” he is “a leading proponent of the theory of evolution and a supporter of embryonic stem cell research. Mooney asked “By what metric is that a clown?” PZ Myers replied, “When it comes to the way he’s thinking about science, everything I’ve read that he’s written has been complete garbage” and that he “will continue to call him a clown.”
Of course, one cannot count of PZ Myers to have read anything by those with whom he disagrees even when he is besmirching the very books/papers he has not read—see here for evidence.
Overall such meetings seem to evidence, at least, two things:
1) Atheism de jour is a movement of young white males which functions as an anti-Christian support group.
2) They are very successful in arguing against straw-men and straw-gods whilst failing to confront opposition accurately.
3) One brilliant stroke of the New Atheist movement was to realize that in order to begin an activist movement all they had to do is encourage childish taunting. Statistically, Atheism is, primarily a young white male phenomenon and merely by declaring themselves to be an Atheist, they Atheist can instantly claim to be smarter than the room, and begin mocking any and all non-Atheists.
That is to say that they do not have to know much of anything: simply pepper the terms science, evolution and Santa Claus into virtually any statement and be as childish as possible—vociferous and emotive. In this way, the New Atheists capitalized on naturally rebellious youth who were rebelling against their parent’s authority and helped them to take the next step in to rebelling again the ultimate authority figure, God.
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